Annie on My Mind
Nancy Garden · 1982
Among the first positive lesbian YA romances. Annie and Liza's love is warm, specific, and joyful before the world tries to punish them for it. Garden understood that teenagers needed to see love like theirs portrayed as real and good, not tragic or shameful. A quiet revolutionary act that still moves readers.
The case against
The frame of teachers on trial turns the last act into a lesson plan, and the prose never aims higher than clear. Its fame is partly its martyrdom: school boards banned it, and protesters in Kansas City burned copies in 1993, and being burned is not a literary quality. What survives the earnestness is the love story itself, which is why the book survived the bonfire.
Romance · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
